Emoluments?

Trump-McConnell Shutdown:  The shutdown battle continues.  Yesterday members of the House Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of self-proclaimed moderates who rarely achieve much but do talk a lot about compromise met with Trump at the White House.  Trump, who enjoys the optics of Democrats trekking to his office, did nothing more than lecture the group on the importance of the wall.  For their part the caucus members agreed that that though  border security is important, there could be no negotiations until the government was opened.  With both sides talking past each other, nothing happened.  A group of Senators including Republicans Lindsay Graham, Susan Collins, and Rob Portman and Democrats Joe Manchin and Chris Coons are trying to get more Republican Senators to sign on to a letter asking Trump to agree to a three week continuing resolution to reopen the government, unfortunately Trump continues to stymie their efforts while Senate Majority Leader McConnell continues to make it clear that he won’t take any action without Trump’s approval, so again nothing is happening.  Trump economic advisor Kevin Hassett who last week suggested that furloughed government employees should just shut up and enjoy their unplanned vacations because they’ll get paid eventually so what if they can’t make their car payments, rent or mortgage payments and/or afford food and gas, has finally admitted that the shutdown is hurting the economy just “a little bit more” than Trump anticipated, another one of those Trumpian understatements, since no one in the White House ever thought about the implications of the shutdown on the economy. Bloomberg reports that the shutdown is causing a decrease in business activity and a drop in confidence, contributing to risks of a recession, one that would be avoidable if only Trump and his administration stopped shooting themselves in the their collective feet.  Yesterday, Speaker Pelosi made it clear that she remains resolute, she sent Trump a letter that essentially put the kibosh on his plans to deliver his State of the Union address in her House.  Her letter says that “given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, I suggest we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29,” her way of saying get with the program chump or else.  Trump’s response was uncharacteristically muted, though a number of Republicans blasted Pelosi for her deviously bold move, with Congressman Scalise, who still doesn’t realize that his party is no longer controlling the keys to the castle, going so far as to suggest that Trump should come over anyway, that he’s sure they can find a room, possibly a broom closet, from which he can deliver his speech.  Pelosi’s move may have been in response to reports that with little positive to say about the state of a government in shutdown mode, Trump plans to spend most of his speech, one being written by that charmer Stephen Miller, playing up the ills of immigration while haranguing and blaming Democrats for the shutdown.  As to Mitch McConnell, while its totally fair to blame Trump for this mess, he is just as responsible for the current situation.  If he threw his support behind government opening legislation it would pass easily.  However he’s up for reelection in 2020, his approval rating in Kentucky is in barely in the 30 percent area, a level it reached only because of his Justice Kavanaugh success, while Trump’s is in the 50s, in Kentucky, not the rest of the country.  He fears that if he doesn’t continue to fully support Trump he’ll get primaried by someone who does and holding his seat and leadership position is far more important to him than doing the right thing.

Sadly Inevitable:  Early yesterday an ISIS suicide bomber attacked a popular restaurant in Manbij, a city in Northern Syria, killing two US service members, an American defense contractor and a Department of Defense civilian, particularly notable because until yesterday only two US service members had been killed in action in Syria since 2014, the beginning of the US Syria campaign.  And also remarkable since just a few weeks ago Trump reported that ISIS had been completely eliminated from Syria, his justification for removing US troops from the country.  Never one to be concerned about the facts, especially when they contradict those spoon fed to him by his dear leader, a few hours after the tragedy VP Pence delivered a speech to the Global Chiefs of Mission conference at the State Department in which he declared that “the caliphate has crumbled and ISIS has been defeated.”  Unfortunately for the fallen US personnel, ISIS hadn’t gotten that message, or more likely they have been emboldened, knowing that with the US withdrawing haphazardly, opportunities for them to cause mayhem have opened up again.   Trump’s Russians friends had little to say about the attack but did an review their view on the Trump as Russian tool thing. Yesterday morning Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov refused to respond to a question about whether or not Trump has ties to Russia, saying that “this is stupid, what is there to comment?”  His comment, or lack thereof, took place right about the time that the NY Times published a report detailing all of Trump’s official and official conversations with Putin. The article mentioned an off the record conversation that Trump had with a NY Times reporter  where he insisted that Russia was “falsely accused” of meddling in the 2016 election contest.  Given Trump’s subsequent comments, the Times has concluded that they no longer have to keep that remark confidential.  Among other things the Times notes that Trump’s “Russian adoption” explanation for son Don Jr’s infamous Trump Tower meeting with the now indicted Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya all too conveniently followed a private conversation that he had with Putin about “Russian adoptions,” the code words for lifting Magnitsky Act sanctions.  As to those sanctions, no other Republican Senators joining the eleven who had already crossed the aisle to support Senator Schumer’s resolution opposing the lifting of sanctions against Russian oligarch Deripaska’s aluminum companies so the sanctions will be lifted.  Notably, Mitt Romney who has long viewed Russian aggression as a major threat didn’t vote against lifting the sanctions.  Oddly enough, neither did Independent Bernie Sanders.  While presidential wannabee Kirsten Gillibrand found the time to rush back to Washington to cast her vote, Bernie did not.  Stepping back to collusion and other such things, last night on Chris Cuomo’s CNN program, in another one of his odd or maybe shrewd “move the goal post” performances, Rudy Giuliani conceded that there was collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russians but that it wasn’t such a bigly deal because Trump wasn’t the one who colluded.  He also went on to say that yeah, Manafort may have shared campaign polling data with a Russian spy, but that’s okay because it was only data.  Lastly, though it remains highly likely that William Barr will be confirmed as Attorney General a number of his remarks remain very concerning to Democrats and anyone who cares about seeing Special Counsel Mueller’s final report.  Notably Barr said that he wants to stick with Justice Department practice of not releasing any information about anyone who is ultimately not indicted.  The problem is that with regard to Trump, that’s a bit of a Catch 22 scenario because Justice Department practice also prohibits the indictment of a sitting president.  Barr also claimed that he wasn’t all that familiar with the Constitution’s emolument prohibitions, rather convenient considering all of Trump’s business entanglements, recent reports that corporate executives from T-Mobile racked up rather large bills at Trump’s DC hotel right after the company announced its planned merger with Sprint, a merger that required Trump administration approval, and yesterday’s statement from the General Service Administration’s Inspector General that the agency improperly ignored the Constitution’s emoluments provision outlawing foreign gifts when it approved Trump’s management of his Washington hotel soon after his 2016 election.  Oops.